Rider
- Jan 14, 2022
- 1 min read
by James Diaz
There is a hole In language It moves like a lantern Caught in wind caught in a tree Near the off ramp where a man on crutches asks of us a small kindness We deny him because he is not ours But nothing is
The pine touched by snow Lets it all go While no one is watching
Lit by televisions They sleep with one heart closed Our people Sadder than we remember them
No one says what they mean
It’s only fair that we pay for each unkindness With our bodies in the end
All joined together Under a thick layer of what?
It’s better to have done the hard thing Than the right thing.
It is better to be better than we know how to be.
Hop in. I’ll take you wherever it is you’re going, friend.
James Diaz is the author of This Someone I Call Stranger (Indolent Books, 2018) and All Things Beautiful Are Bent (Alien Buddha, 2021), as well as the founding editor of Anti-Heroin Chic. Their work has appeared most recently in The Madrigal, Cleaver Magazine, Rust + Moth, Cobra Milk Mag and Bullshit Lit. They live in upstate New York.
